' Thinking Activity '
Welcome readers! This blog is written in response to the task assigned by Dr.Dilip Barad sir. In this blog, I will Summarize another Ania Loomba's article - " Conclusion : The Future of Post Colonial Studies." I have made seperate blogs for both the articles of Ania Loomba.
Conclusion : The Future of Post - Colonial Studies
Some of the best known Practitioners of Post Colonial Studies, like Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Claim that they no longer have a Post Colonial Perspective. Post Colonial is the day before yesterday. For Some PostColonialists, both within and Outside literary Studies Such rethink has been Prompted by their engagement with new challenges, such as those Posed by environmental Studies. Thus Dipesh Chakraborty finds that all his readings in theories of Globalization, Marxist analysis of capital , Subaltern Studies, and Post Colonial Criticism over the last twenty five years have not Prepared him for the task of analyzing the Planetary crisis of climate change. In this Article Ania Loomba wants to briefly reflect on some of these challenges and what they mean for a Post Colonial critique.
Ecology is a new concern for many intellectuals and activist concerted with the Contemporary legacies of colonialism. Climate change is coming as a big threat. There are so many videos available on You - tube about Climate change. It is important to see that;
" How all Constructions destroy the Ecology. In that reference, Post Colonial argument and insights become important ."
Vandana Shiva , an environmental activist. She exposed the Connection between Colonialism and the destruction of environmental diversity. She argues that the growth of capitalism , and now of trans - national Corporations , excerbated the dynamic begun under Colonialism which has destroyed Sustainable local cultures ; these cultures were also more women friendly , Partly because women's work was so crucially tied to Producing food and fodder.
" Ecology and human culture are intricately linked with each other."
Ramchandra Guha and Juan Martinez Alier (1997) , Critics Point out is evident in America environmentalism and its obsession with the wilderness. Rob Nixon further notes that this wilderness obsession is celebrated in American literature as well as in natural history. Nixon suggests such 'Spatial amnesia' is one reason why Post Colonial Criticism has been suspicious of earth - first green Criticism and therefore has not engaged with questions relating to the environment.
Ken Saro Wiwa - environment activist from Nigeria led MOSOP or the Movement for the survival of the Ogoni People , an indigenous group in southeast Nigeria, whose Oil - rich homelands were targated for drilling by multinationals, leading to their large scale displacement and to wide scale environmental destruction. Ken saro viwa executed after criticizing the activities of the multinational Oil Compines in Nigeria.
In India , the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) led widespread Protests against a Project , funded by multinational as well as indigenous capital, to build scores of large dams across central India. The Protests highlighted not just the ecological damage but also the displacement of thousands of trible Peoples all across the Narmada Valley.
Chittaroopa Palit , One of the leaders of the NBA says that ,
" She and her Comrades learnt a lot about the structures and Process of Globalization through these Struggles. NBA developed new forms of resistance by drawing on the rich experience of the local people and their knowledge of the land."
In sharp Contrast is the resistance to the Plunder of the forests in central India by Iron and bauxite mining compaines. The movement here is led by Maoist Guerrillas who have taken control of large swathes of territory and are being hunted by the Police and the army.
Arundhati Roy writes that the Constitution of free India 'ratified Colonial Policy and made the state state custodian of tribal homelands. Over night, it turned the entire tribal Polulation into squatters on their own land. It denied them their traditional rights to forest Produce, it criminalised a whole way of life.'
Further , Karl Marx explained that ;
" The enclosure of the commons was crucial to the birth of capitalism. He describes the Process in England : beginning at the end of the fifteenth century, the forcible usurpation of Communal Poverty occured first by means of individual acts of violence and later through the Parliamentary acts for Enclosures of the commons. Along with Slavery and colonialism, the takeover of the commons and the conversation of various forms of collective Peoperty rights into Private Property involved dispossessing large Sections of the Population, both in the Colonising and Colonized countries, So that wealth would be accumulated by a few. It also turned those dispossessed People into landless labourers and forced them into a cash economy; their work was thus Commodified. In short it give us the idea that ;
" How One can Protect Commoners."
Rosa Luxemburg's Work :- "The Accumulation of capital." She is not agreed what Karl Marx has Said. She suggested the need to revise Marx. Karl Marx visualised capitalism as a closed system. She argued that for capitalism to thrive it constantly needs new markets for its goods, which cannot be consumed entirely within the system. Luxemburg 's ideas remain important today for two reasons.
1. Firstly, she alerts us to the deep historical Connections between trade and colonialism.
2. Secondly, she reminds us that accumulation is a Constant Process rather than a Past event.
Amitav Ghosh's recent book, "The River of smoke" offers a deeply Compelling Fictional account by looking at the Opium trade and war in China.
David Harvey suggests that we redefine 'Primitive accumulation' as accumulation by dispossession. Nationalised industries have been Privatised. Family farming has been taken over by agribusiness. And Slavery has not disappeared.
Swapna Bannerjee Guha argues that accumulation by dispossession is at the very heart of neoliberal development. Concluding that it involves not just dispossession from land but losing rights over nature , livelihood Practices , related knowledge and even culture - all that capital needs to appropriate for its expnasion and increasing Profit.
In one of the essay , Dipesh Chakraborty writes that ;
" Whereas historians had Previously assumed that the environment changed so slowly as to be a negligible factor in human history, we have now reached a ' tipping Point' where it is clear that human beings have become geological agents' in a much more drastic and immediate Palpable way. They are now the main determinant of the environment of the Planet , ushering in a new geological age that can be called the Anthropocene. "
In short he gave idea about ;
" Towards a new Universalism and the Anthropocene. "
In last, Ania Loomba Suggested and highlighted four areas about the Future of Post Colonial Studies.
1. The Environment
2. The history and Present of indigenous Peoples and societies.
3. Post modern histories and cultures
4. The Ongoing Colonization of territories labour and Peoples by global capitalism.
Here are some examples of Movies which depicts the environmental crisis and concerns.
1.Sherni :-
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